Im my opinion Gore might have rushed to war after 9/11 quicker than Bush because people would have seen him as weak. He was more likely to be seen that way, and congress would have been pressing him for action far more than anyone did to Bush.
nonsense, the only reason NATO declared it an attack on the member nations and invoked is charter is because of the deep natural affinity that Europeans have for George W. Bush...
regardless of how much we may disagree with europe, the fact remains that we are brothers. 9/11 hurt them deeply and emotionally. they were willing to retaliate with force for the same reasons we were. iraq made no sense and they knew it. only bush's poodle got on board in any significant way. the poodle is currently paying the price for that.
The European stance wasn't any different than that of the 'Old Guard' of the Republican party. Many traditional conservatives and realists -- including Colin Powell and numerous other Pentagon and State Dept officials, many of whom served under Reagan and Bush 'the father' -- have been highly critical throughout the entire Iraq campaign, but some GWB loyalists choose to remain blind given their unwillingness to admit that they might have been wrong. Instead, the popular reaction was to mock the Europeans as a bunch of 'pacifists' and 'wimps' for being highly critical of the Iraq campaign. It's easy to forget that every single one of those 'wimps' (yes, including the 'uber-wimp' Canada) has volunteered troops to Afghanistan and are taking a leadership role in the NATO force there. Of course, if the Europeans are a bunch of wimps for opposing the Iraq war, then all those current/former officials and other prominent war veterans are a bunch of pansies for opposing the war as well. It's a classic example of simple-mindedness, which is what much of modern day politics has come down to...
i think we're on the same page here tiger. i would like to tie this in with gore by saying that i believe not only would he have authorized going into afghanistan, we would currently be accomplshing more, especially on the humanitarian front. i also assume we would not be in iraq, and neither would al queda and the multitudes of insurgents hammering away at innocent iraqi's. just my opinion, for whatever it's worth.
It is also possible that we would not have done so on the cheap and let Osama get away when he was cornered in Tora Bora. Instead Rummy & his band of proxy fighters let him slip away rather than using our troops to get him. Northern Alliance fighters sat around drinking tea, we bombed a few caves, and Osama got away, while US special forces & the like sat around wating for the word that never came, because of Rummy's little experiment. What a shame, we deserved better.
People of course, being right-wing gasbag radio hosts, heroic bloggers, and any element of the far right willing to use the cudgel of patriotic language and imagery to make a political point. Anyway, I remember having the same thoughts... thinking Bush had the option of waiting a bit longer to commit to Afghanistan and we were more likely to be more successful with a well-thought out plan. What an idiot I was. And of course, there's no way Gore or any other American President, past or future, does not go into Afghanistan. And of course, there's no way Gore or any other American President, past or future, does go in to Iraq (present President excepted).
